Risk Assessments: A Weighted Score Approach to Improving Risk Management Decisions

Increases in security breaches have resulted in the need for organizations to identify, mitigate, and eliminate potential risks more than ever before. One of the most effective ways to heighten security awareness and reduce its risks is to conduct a thorough risk assessment and consistently audit identified risks. The subjective nature of risk assessments and the lack of a standardized rating scale, however, can produce various outcomes and calculations, leading to an inconsistent analysis of the identified risks. The unstructured risk assessment models and frameworks may lead some organizations to contribute more resources to risks that are of lesser importance than others. This paper will propose a new method to improve the standard risk assessment models. An original risk assessment calculation method will be introduced and analyzed using DeLone and Mclean's IS Success Model.